On Tue, Mar 08, 2022 at 11:32:43AM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote: > On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 7:31 PM Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I'd like to propose a discussion about the workflow of the stable trees > > when it comes to fs/ and mm/. In the past year we had some friction with > > regards to the policies and the procedures around picking patches for > > stable tree, and I feel it would be very useful to establish better flow > > with the folks who might be attending LSF/MM. > > > > I feel that fs/ and mm/ are in very different places with regards to > > which patches go in -stable, what tests are expected, and the timeline > > of patches from the point they are proposed on a mailing list to the > > point they are released in a stable tree. Therefore, I'd like to propose > > two different sessions on this (one for fs/ and one for mm/), as a > > common session might be less conductive to agreeing on a path forward as > > the starting point for both subsystems are somewhat different. > > > > We can go through the existing processes, automation, and testing > > mechanisms we employ when building stable trees, and see how we can > > improve these to address the concerns of fs/ and mm/ folks. > > > > Hi Sasha, > > I think it would be interesting to have another discussion on the state of fs/ > in -stable and see if things have changed over the past couple of years. > If you do not plan to attend LSF/MM in person, perhaps you will be able to > join this discussion remotely? > > >From what I can see, the flow of ext4/btrfs patches into -stable still looks > a lot healthier than the flow of xfs patches into -stable. That is explicitly because the ext4/btrfs developers/maintainers are marking patches for stable backports, while the xfs developers/maintainers are not. It has nothing to do with how me and Sasha are working, so go take this up with the fs developers :) > In 2019, Luis started an effort to improve this situation (with some > assistance from me and you) that ended up with several submissions > of stable patches for v4.19.y, but did not continue beyond 2019. > > When one looks at xfstest bug reports on the list for xfs on kernels > v4.19 > one has to wonder if using xfs on kernels v5.x.y is a wise choice. That's up to the xfs maintainers to discuss. > Which makes me wonder: how do the distro kernel maintainers keep up > with xfs fixes? Who knows, ask the distro maintainers that use xfs. What do they do? The xfs developers/maintainer told us (Sasha and I) to not cherry-pick any xfs "fixes:" patches to the stable trees unless they explicitly marked it for stable. So there's not much we can do here about this without their involvement as I do not want to ever route around an active maintainer like that. > Many of the developers on CC of this message are involved in development > of a distro kernel (at least being consulted with), so I would be very much > interested to know how and if this issue is being dealt with. Maybe no distro cares about xfs? :) thanks, greg k-h
